Check out my experiences in the Linux world. Stay tunned for updates/reviews!

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

REVIEW: Chakra 2012.02 "Archimedes"

"Give me a place to stand on, and I will move the Earth", said Archimedes. Can Chakra Linux move the Linux World? At the very least, it is a clear example of how a young project can grow and improve fast, becoming more interesting release after release. Let´s have a look at its latest release, Chakra 2012.02 "Archimedes"
MEETING ARCHIMEDES
This last Chakra release is one of the first distros to incorporate KDE SC 4.8. This already is a plus and a good reason to try Archimedes, for KDE SC 4.8 is awesome, but there is a lot more to this release than that. Here's a brief list of features:
- KDE SC 4.8.0
- Linux 3.2.2 (2.6.35.14 optional)
- Qt 4.8
- DVD image, including all locales and a nice selections of apps
- minimal CD image you can build your desktop on
- tomoyo-tools 2.5 added to a default install, for more security options
- wqy-microhei became the new default font for Chinese/Japanese/Korean
- QtWebkit 2.2.1
- Boost 1.48, switch to GRUB2
Click on image to enlarge
This release is the first to incorporate a minimal CD image, and that is the one I have installed and will be reviewing. Note that this minimal image is not meant for beginners, but I would still recommend it to anyone interested in building a taylor-made KDE desktop. It's also good for anyone interested in learning more about KDE, the packages that comprise its modules, etc.
Aside from the features I have already listed above, this release of Chakra comes with new artwork, which includes everything from the splash and login screens to the wallpaper and plasma theme. This new artwork has been dubbed "Ronak". It looks interesting, certainly setting Chakra appart from other KDE distros out there. Personally, I love the fact that the Chakra developers have made an effort to provide something different and stylish, but I am no fan of dark desktops. I love the splash and login screens, but the wallpaper and plasma themes are a bit too dark and intense for my taste.
Click on image to enlargeMORE ABOUT CHAKRA
Leaving the features specific to this release aside, Chakra is quite an experience from the get go. The installation is handled by Tribe, Chakra's very own install wizard. The project developers clearly state Tribe is still under development, lacking some important features, but it is surely one of the best looking installers in Linux, one with its own personality, plus it already works well. One thing I have noticed, though, is that Tribe doesn´t seem to handle installation of locale and language settings very well. In my case, during the installation I chose Madrid as the city I live in, but specified I wanted the installation language to be US English. Every distro I have tried so far always managed this successfully, but in the case of Chakra, I get some quirky results when installing applications or managing system tools... For they appear in Spanish! (see pacman output below)
Click on image to enlarge
Some applications like KTorrent, VLC and some others (not all) were installed in Spanish, so I had to force them to start in English. If you have a similar problem, you can enforce a certain language using the following syntax in your launcher (or typing from the CLI):
KDE_LANG=en_US ktorrent (or any other KDE app you want to do this for)
Other things unique to Chakra include the splash screen, which is a departure from what other distros are doing. It uses a nice animation around the Chakra logo that looks simply beautiful. Just like the splash screen, the login screen makes the most of Ronak, and it looks just as good.
Click on image to enlarge
Chakra comes with its own firewall application (screenshot above), which allows for easy firewall configuration. Another bit that sort of defines Chakra is its commitment to KDE and, more specifically, to avoiding any GTK libraries in the installation. This results in a curious approach to installation of GTK apps (such as Firefox, GIMP, Google Chrome, Chromium or Inkscape, to name about a few), which is handled via Chakra´s very own Bundle Manager.
Click on image to enlarge
This approach is interesting and works well and upgrades are automatically detected when they become available (see above). However, it has some definite issues, for the complete lack of GTK libraries sometimes leads to unfortunate dead ends. For instance, installing Kfilebox will download the Dropbox daemon, but due to the lack of any GTK library, the dropbox setup has to be done through the command line interface. Similarly, if you are into bash scripting and rely on zenity or any of its forks... well, forget about it, Zenity is nowhere to be found... Looking for an excuse to migrate your scripts to kdialog? On top of that, while the Chakra developers have done a good job putting together a list of GTK most popular apps in the Bundle Manager, it is clear that the list is far from complete. What if the end user wants to install one of the many apps that are not included? Chakra users have limited freedom in this regard, which may end up being frustrating.
On the bright side of things, Chakra guarantees a "pure" KDE environment, free of any GTK "polution", which should be appreciated by some. Personally, after using Fedora KDE, PCLinux KDE or Kubuntu quite regularly (which do include GTK libraries when required), I cannot really see much of an advantage in such approach, but I am sure some people will.
A BIZARRE KISS
Chakra follows the KISS (Keep it simple, stupid) principles, so the expectation is to find a desktop that is easy to use right off the bat. Rightly so, even in the minimal CD image, Chakra comes with a whole bunch of codecs and plugins installed, which will allow users to be able to play about any kind of multimedia content in existence. Flash is included with the browsers that can be installed through the bundle manager. Default applications include Rekonq, Bangarang, Kate and just a few others, which is aligned with the spirit of a minimal installation. The bundle manager which allows the installation of GTK apps is also included, but there is no GUI software manager. It is surprising that certain basic apps like Ksnapshot or Kwallet are not included, and even the gtk-integration package is missing (which will make GTK apps look TERRIBLE).
Like I was saying, this is a minimal installation, so the gates are open for the end user to decide about anything, which is cool, but there is always a question around what are the basics that absolutely must make it into such minimal image. Personally, I would have included a few more things that I consider absolutely basic. Like it or not (if not, the extended DVD live image is the answer), Chakra will allow you to build your KDE desktop from the ground up, which is an enlightening experience, but once again, not recommended for beginners.
Living the minimal image discussion aside, there are some things that I find strange about Chakra. For example, it deviates from pretty much any other KDE distro out there and assigns the ctrl+alt+del key combination to a quirky symbol (see below on the krunner plasma dialog), as opposed to the good old shutdown dialog that we are all accustomed to. Similarly, the print key will not trigger ksnapshot (not even on the DVD version), so users will be forced to reassign it if they want the usual behavior back. I don't quite understand these strange choices, specially in a distro which claims to keep it simple.
Click on image to enlarge
Another unusual thing is that Chakra does not include any folder in the user home folder, except for the desktop. This is OK for those who want to create everything down to their own needs and taste, but I find it a bit extreme. It´s alright to leave certain folders out, like Public, Video or Pictures, but others like Downloads are pretty much a must, specially because most Internet browsers default to that folder when downloading files. Regardless of how you look at it, what is simpler, to ignore folders you don´t need or to be forced to create those you do need? Hmmm...
Click on image to enlarge
On a similar note, I find the default application catalog quite weird, specially considering Chakra is a KDE only distro (which I was assuming would evangelize the K desktop). Why then leaving so many KDE native apps out of it? Most of KDE PIM is nowhere to be found and many other popular KDE choices follow suit.
READY TO MOVE THE LINUX WORLD?
All in all, I believe Chakra is a very interesting and promising young project. There are some rough edges that I believe need polishing, but it is a good distro overall. I am not crazy about the fact that they seem to be reinventing the wheel in some ways (there is ongoing work to create its own package manager and GUI), plus the lack of any GTK support may cause issues to some users, but I think there is a relevant place for Chakra in the Linux World. I don´t see Chakra ready to take on the "big names" just yet, but it is getting there and with the right decisions, it may well be ready to sooner rather than later.

I greatly enjoyed reading your Chakra review. However, I disagree with your conclusion regarding whether or not Arch or pacman has an significant advantage or yum or other distros. As a longtime Arch user, I can first of all tell you that there are some significant differences between Arch and Chakra. While Chakra is based off of Arch, it packages its own repositories. Chakra does not contain that full range of packages that you would find on Arch. Even more significant, Chakra does not come with, nor encourage its users, to install a package wrapper like packer or yaourt to access packages from Arch's AUR. The AUR is basically like Ubuntu PPAs on steroids; you can find virtually every latest and obscure package that might otherwise only be available on Ubuntu or Debian. Because of the unified nature of the AUR, you don't have to install and manage a bunch of PPAs or repositories like you might have to in Ubuntu, Debian, OpenSuse or Fedora. In addition, I've found that updates from the AUR do not even close to the amount of breakage that updated PPAs and Fedora repositories can cause.

I definitely concede that Arch can be a pain in the ass to setup up. Fortunately, the documentation on how to do is really good. But while Arch is a pain to set up, it is very customizable for projects that would otherwise be really difficult to achieve on other distros, such as setting up Gnome 3 without pulseaudio, Disabling an Radeon video card to save power on an Sandybridge laptop that has integrated graphics, or setting up a lean, minimal KDE install. So while Arch might take some time to set up, I find that you often save a lot of time in the long run on these custom sort of projects because Arch is easier to get to bend to your will.

@Bordee: I see where you are coming from, and I agree that there are certain advantages to Arch, perhaps I didn´t explain myself. What I meant is that, as a whole, I don´t see Arch ahead of the curve, because while it does have strengths (some of which you explained in your comment), it also has shortcomings. As a result, I think Arch users will certainly enjoy a number of unique benefits, but lack on other departments.

"Regardless of how you look at it, what is simpler, to ignore folders you don´t need or to be forced to create those you do need? Hmmm..."

I rather prefer the cleanest install possible. I really hate when i have to deal with a cluttered Desktop by default. Anyway, it is not so hard to create a folder nowadays .

"Chakra follows the KISS (Keep it simple, stupid) principles, so the expectation is to find a desktop that is easy to use right off the bat. "

The KISS principle have more to do with the developer and system point of view than the newbies and unskilled user point of view. Despite of that, Chakra is a lot more user friendly that Arch

"What if the end user wants to install one of the many apps that are not included? Chakra users have limited freedom in this regard, which may end up being frustrating."

If you install Ubuntu, Fedora or Mint but you prefer to use kde, then you have to install kde and QT apps for the sake of consistency and integration. The drawback of this is that you'll get a bunch of gtk apps that you'll never use because with the KDE SC is more than enough. Chakra bundles gives you all those 'must have' GTK apps that not exist in the Qt or KDE world , like Gimp or Inkscape.

Anyway, i really like this Distro, with its Arch way to manage the system which is a blessing for users who knows how to use the console. If there's is a package that doesn't exits in the Arch repos i can easily import it to Chakra. And if that package doesn't exist in the Arch repos neither, then i can easily build and maintain my own package, thanks to the simplicity of pacman and other tools that ARch and Chakra created.

I was so happy when able to install systemd to boot and manage my system process and services , something that was almost impossible under Ubuntu (Ubuntu developers hates sysmted (just because is a lot better than upstar)).

KDE performance is lot better under Chakra than under (K)Ubuntu, in fact i think that kubuntu needs to be shutdown to stop hurting the kde project with its buggy implementation.

"except the educational outcome that may result from using them. pacman is not necessarily better than yum, for instance, and following the same argument, neither are other Chakra/Arch features. "

The package management system that pacman brings is the best: symplicity, easy to use and maintain.

You have to choices:1) Install a user friendly distro like Ubuntu and get a bloated, un-tuned, power hungry and hard to manage underlying system , or 2) Install a distro easy deal with.

You really should read again what is the KISS thing about go here http://chakra-linux.org/about.html

and read :

"Although this might sound like a distro for Linux newbies, these are not our only target audience, Chakra is made also for techy people and competent GNU/Linux users with a passion for KDE, KISS and such stuff, who don't fear to get their hands dirty but want to set up a usable desktop system quickly and easily."

Of course you are unimpressed!!! if you want to use an out of the box working and tunned computer without tweaking , then buy an Apple computer. (Sorry, macbooks doesn't even have the print screen key to get screenshots for your reviews, so you'll have to figure it out with google)

We can of course agree to disagree, but I don't think it is a good thing to throw false/inaccurate arguments about other distros, specially if they are negative. We are all Linux fans after all, aren't we?

On a different note, I keep seeing it brought in somewhat often, usually by hardcore fans, this notion that one has to go back to a distro wiki or site and learn about the distro mission, its philosophy, etc. Honestly, how many people do you think will do that? We need to open our eyes to reality and stop sugar coating everything that remotely sounds like problems, or else Linux will never get to the quality it deserves.

How many Linux users actually could be bothered to go back to Microsoft and ask for their mission to see if the blue screen of death made sense? How many had thought there was a good reason for Vista being such a pile of BS? How many iOS or Android users will actually waste a second wondering about the reasons why their devices are not up to their expectations? The answer is clear: nobody.

It is completely unfair for us Linux users to consistently criticize other systems to then justify our own no matter the cost. Similarly, it is unrealistic to expect others to behave in a way we don't. It is the year 2012 and it is about time we start to realize that someone criticizing something we love can actually have a point.

Along the same lines, how come you made a comment here if you didn't bother ask me why I wrote this review the way I did? Don't worry, I am happy that you did and no, you didn't need to ask anything or learn why I wrote this review the way I did... and by the same token, neither do I when I state my opinion about Chakra, Arch, or whatever.

When was the last time a computer novice could run a windows system (or any other OS), without reading one single thing? I find these comments quite ridiculous from this reviewer. Not one person uses a powerful app like computers are nowadays, without getting some basic knowledge somewhere, reading, someone teaching, just for the most basic tasks. Why all of a sudden is that not needed for Linux?

You seem to have very strong views on what you believe Linux should be in your eyes. I respect that but you must rise above people that flame bite,As for the review chakra is not intended for people that expect things handed on a plate also its not a mature project as they decided to part with Arch and start and package there own. Its aim is to showcase pure KDE. Most of the devs work for KDE. That does not mean its the best implication. Arch with KDE is faster and more stable and uses less resources once set up and less bloat. Unfortunately you can't have both every thing but the kitchen sink and a lite on resources + a fast system. Chakra tries to strike a happy medium with the GTK bundles as they are self contained and do not effect KDE in any way.We must also remember Linux comes in kit form unlike MS/apple where you pay and get what you are given, with Linux you get a vast choice of distros/desktops for free yet people think its there right to just complain if something does not work for them.

As a long time Arch user I agree with pretty much all your findings. Pacman and AUR offer no advantages over other more well thought out and better implemented systems out there. Sorry, but its true. AUR is a PITA to deal with and is nothing even remotely close to what a PPA is. No clue where you would come up with that because its patently false. Setting up Arch is dead simple and pretty much any monkey at the zoo could handle it given some small training. Sorry, but Arch users do not hold the "I am the biggest geek in the Universe" trophy. That award goes to Gentoo users.

Chakra does nothing but waste time/resources on stale ideas that have been tried before. It will never gain popularity beyond passing interest for distro hoppers who try it out, have a good laugh, then move on to more mature distro's that truly do have something to offer. Harsh words I am aware, but sometimes harsh words are exactly what are called for.

Just a thought about these situations in general... I put together a review whose tone is generally clearly positive, and I end up saying Chakra is a good and promising project which still needs a bit of polishing (I can hardly understand how anybody would oppose that given the project is still clearly in progress, with several bits and pieces far from being complete). Yet, even if the feedback is generally positive, the acceptance of feedback is sometimes close to zero (luckily there is a majority who is willing to listen).

Essentially, there are people for whom any kind of negative feedback is simply rubbish, something to be discarded immediately, then that can be justified saying that the user who provided such feedback is missing the point, ignorant, not aware of the distro mission, etc.

I believe in Linux and believe in people who set out on a goal to create a valid alternative to paid and closed software. The fact that they are not paid for their efforts does not mean a thing, because as long as the goal is to provide a valid alternative, then it is perfectly legitimate to provide feedback, even if that feedback is negative. Needless to say, such feedback must be respectful and make sense, but simple demeaning it when it is not what we want to hear is not the right approach to reach our goals.

There is something weird going on with comments here. I get emails with comments that have apparently been posted, but then blogger does not show them for me to approve, so it seems like a couple posts have been lost somehow.

It´s out of my control, but apologies if you have posted and your comment didn´t appear here, it´s not because I am not approving them.

I would like to encourage those whose comment didn´t show up to try again.

"even in the minimal CD image, Chakra comes with a whole bunch of codecs and plugins installed, such as FLASH"

Clearly you haven't done your homework, you say you don't want to read Chakra's goals, but even then you missed a ton of other things, for this to be called a true review, the bad thing is people that reads this and believes you, please in the most respectful manner, research well the distro you are trying to review and be objective!

And to the people reading this, please try any distro even if it is in virtual box at least a few days, for you to be able to form an accurate opinion, things like pacman is no better than X or Y are completely unobjective, I like pacman, only because it is fast (you have to select the best mirror for you), and because what it outputs makes sense to me, for me it is the most transparent and esasy to read package manager, that makes it the best for "ME". but what do you people think, give it a spin!!!

Anonymous 1: Talk about nitpicking... Of course I know flash is no codec, I was just talking about the fact that Chakra is ready to display most multimedia content out of the box, which many users will appreciate. It was just a way of putting it, chill out...

As for the objective bit... Well, I, like any other reviewer out there, will never be 100% objective, but that´s irrelevant here... In this case it is you who needs to do some homework... just take a quick look at the line below the title of my blog... Actually, let me spell it for you:

"Check out my experiences in the Linux world"

So each and everyone of my reviews are essentially MY opinion, I never said I was 100% objective and I never will. Similarly, I have never tried to convey that my articles express the truth about anything. They simply convey MY experience and look at a certain distro from a certain point of view. No more, no less.

Anonymous 2: Please read what I wrote. I said I wanted to try Chakra for many reasons, one of which was to get a taste of Arch. I didn´t say I want to experience Arch in full, just wanted to see a bit of it in action, and Chakra can cover that piece very well (for example, giving a chance to use pacman, use the Arch repos, etc)

Big mistakes also, Chakra doesnt use Arch repos and no flash installed. You review this distro you should know that! The developers say they wrote to you here many times and you do not show comment. Here is:http://chakra-project.org/bbs/viewtopic.php?pid=49637#p49637

ChemaRemember my 1st paragraph small correction"for example, giving a chance to use pacman, use the Arch repos, etc)"chakra does not use the Arch Repos, they repackage them Chakra is not compatible with arch since they split so it may break.

Anonymous? said>AUR is a PITA to deal with and is nothing even remotely close to what a PPA is. No clue where you would come up with that because its patently false<. I use AUR a lot and its not a piti its the total opposite and works well most of the time but because you have to use your brain sometimes you have to be a little more than the monkey you talked about in your post

chemaHow about a review on Parsix in the future I've been involved since it was alpha and find it stable although i've not been active in the forums for a while back in April to start testing Parsix4

As for Arch repos, yes, that was my mistake. Was trying to think of things I could mention and that came to mind, but it is obviously wrong, my apologies.

As for Flash, it is very strange, because I know it is one of the steps I always go through when setting up a distro, and I remember being happily surprised when I didn't have to with Chakra. I may have installed it and I don't remember, but I really think it was there by default.

Last but not least, I did mention that something weird was going on with comments, and that from a Chakra member (apparently) was one of them. I have already encouraged to repost, but haven't seen anything back from that guy. Honestly, this is not something I control, it seems to be some random errors in blogger. Apologies for that.

I have now read the comment in that forum (thanks for the link, whoever you are) and all I can think of is that maybe it is too long for Blogger to chew on it?... I am just thinking outloud here, but what I know for sure is that I have no issues publishing something like that. In fact, it would be an honor to have feedback from Chakra developers in my blog, so there is no reason for me to censor anything like that, much less when it is a perfectly respectful and informative message.

I was going to reply to that post with my arguments, but I think I am wasting my time. I believe it is best to agree to disagree, so while I admit I could have explained a couple things in a more clear way, I also want to state that I stand by most of my review.

One post trying to summarize what that Chakra developer explained just arrived, and it is the first one I have actually discarded. In essence, the post didn't add anything new and simply extended a pointless discussion.

I have now edited my review and clarified the bit about flash, as well as removed that reference to Arch, which is what seems to bother most people.

I am curious about Chakra´s GTK-bundling. Did I get it?1. GTK prorams/apps are self-contained packages. That means they have their own needed GTK libraries, that won´t be installed in the system.2. Thus I don´t get other unwanted GTK stuff on my system.

Now my question: Apart from a wasted gigabyte, does a regular GTK-app install, like Kubuntu/SUSE/Pardus/..., "bother" my KDE? And how? I can not imagine this.I start my Kate text editor. Why should it bother Kate, that GIMP´s GTK is also installed on my system? What is the advantage of "clean" KDE? Is it just a philosophical thing?

Anonymous, I believe it does have more to do with a philosophical thing as you said, than anything else. Like I said in my article, I didn't notice any performance difference between Chakra and other good KDE implementation, like Fedora.

Hi @Chema, I am chilled! lol I'm sorry if I sounded rude, but my english is not that neat, what I meant about flash is that it doesnt come with chakra (out of the box) because it deppends of gtk,and yes it says it is your experiences of linux, but still the title reads "review", I think an image of pacman, apt get, yum, etc side by side is more informative, for this to be a true review it must state facts and let the reader decide, if someone reads yast sucks, etc. it is of little help (doesn`t say why) and misleading (to new users).

For example; tell us what makes yum better for you by comparing facts and features, not opinions, it is of better use for everyone! (for example. I have never used yum, so tell us!)

abut ppas I think you can add custom repos in pacman.conf, I think this would be more close to ppas than CCR (AUR).

Glad it was all a misunderstanding, sorry but it's sometimes difficult to understand the tone from a brief comment.

And yeah, I see what you are saying, but unfortunately that could apply to every single bit of my review. You could always say that my comments about tribe, or Ronak, or KISS, or whatever are not detailed enough, but that's the nature of writing a review like this. I think it is a difficult balance between sharing information and making it somewhat fun to read.

In reviews like this one, my intention is share my experience in somewhat standard activities, targeting an audience of somewhat standard users (as in not 100% geeks).

I might tackle a comparison of CLI package managers at some point, but I personally like to look forward, and there is a lot of exciting stuff going on in GUI package managers in Linux today that I consider more relevant for the average user.

Thank you for the review. IMO ... ignore the obnoxious 'expert' geeks. They are not your taget audience. Intermediate users like myself are. One Youtube publisher video'd his 'mastery' of Arch. It put most people off Arch ... even though he did 'master' it.

I'm looking for a good version of something like KDE: fast, low rsources, bug free, light. The best I've tried is Xubuntu with AWN & Compiz. I like a newish kernel (not Debian-types) cos I use modern hardware: esata, usb3, SSD, etc. 'buntu does not have the latest kernel, nor the lightest, fastest, very reliable GUI. So I'm still searching. You review helped me ... I'll try Chakra now - hoping ...

BTW: the queenie bullies & cowards taunting you are all called 'Anonymous'.

u will like it... i came from ubuntu, then mint...then in autumn i installed chakra... now its still beautyful and elegant.And it boots damn fast :)I still have mint installed, but in the eye candy bootmanager i choose 99% chakra, i just feel at home there.The bundle system is great, i would love if all apps would be handed like that...just make them an own partition with all they need and if u dont want them voila, nothing left :)

Hmmm... I have to say I like the bundle idea, but in my experience, it is far from working well. Most apps I install from the bundle, if not all, have issues "talking" to KDE components. For instance, neither GIMP nor Firefox seem to notice there is a printer installed when I am trying to print. I know there is a hack around this, but that's not the point.

Additionally, GIMP gives errors often, like it requires access to certain system files but it cannot make it happen.

Again, I like the bundle idea, not so much because it prevents GTK libraries in a KDE environment (I don't have a problem with that), but because of its conveniency, as you rightly put it. However, I think applications installed through those bundles must work 100%.

oh, i dont have a printer, so i am happy cups is not running ;)I use Gimp a lot, under mint and win8 my graphic tablet doesnt work right... with chakra no problem, i never had any issue... u just cannot safe ur files everywhere thats right...

Thanks for the review I have been using Chakra for over a year and find it very stable and responsive. I think there are still bugs to be ironed out ( package installer) but this i believe is being sorted.Just as a matter of interest the other distro i like is Netrunner have you done a review on that???Thanks again Long live Linux

Why with the obviously great knowledge base out there are people not willing to pull together more in some way instead of seemingly flooding the market with a barage of distros.

I fear that Linux could well disapear up its own exhaust pipe simply through OTT changes and many many disparities between believers. Flooding the market in this way is a sure fire way of failing.

Lest face it, Windows is Windows, Mac OS is Mac OS and Android is Android. To me, a relative newcomer to Linux, Linux is not simply Linux, it is a hundred and one other extremely confusing things also.

I understand that choice is a major concern with Linux principal but to the new uninitiated, I fear they could very easily be bamboozled into backtacking it (or not even starting Linux) back to the safe haven of Windows or Mac OS (people will get bored with Android as I have).

All of the Linux distros I suppose are born of good intentions but, good intentions do not always lead to success. Possibly the Linux crew have believed in their own hype too much "Up the revolution" and "Freedom" and have now started to crumble in splintered fractions that could lead to its own downfall. I hope not.

What you are pointing out here is true and has been discussed a million times in a million different forums. Yes, freedom is great, but it can lead to chaos, to so many sides of the coin that it can be overwhelming to the new comer... In contrast, there are other tightly regulated environments that provide users with what they need in a safe and easy fashion, right?

Well, I think you are very much answering your own question. You are more comfortable in a closed environment and don't have a problem with paying for software that others do following the decisions they and only they make. Linux is clearly not about that, and while maybe not suited to you, it will be for others and that's why it will never go away.

As for its downfall... That's funny, I recommend you take a quick look at a recent article of mine (http://cristalinux.blogspot.com.es/2012/04/lets-look-at-linux-for-minute.html) in which I was sharing a video published by the Linux Foundation not long ago. Linux is not only stronger than ever, it hands down leads about every computing discipline except for home computing (which, opposite to what most think, is no longer that important, as is shown by the fact that mobile devices are now sold in higher figures).

And as for getting bored with Android...? And what's entertaining you then? If you say iOS, that will be even funnier.

Anyways, Linux is free in every sense of the word, allowing its users to use it in whatever way they want, whether they actively participate in modifying it or not. However, it does not, like commercial software, base its success in sales figures or number of users. It is alive and kicking as long as people like things their way, and I don't see that going away for a long, long time.